


Brief Bus Stop (Ch. 2)

by vega_voices



Series: Brief Bus Stop [2]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:04:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>His appearance at her apartment proved to her that he is nervous about more than tomorrow. They have been undercover as lovers before. But this time it feels different. Last time, they let themselves get caught in the moment. They had so little time to prepare or dwell on the ramifications of the line they were destined to cross. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Brief Bus Stop (Ch. 2)

_**Fic: Brief Bus Stop (Ch. 2)**_  
 **Series:** Brief Bus Stop  
 **Chapter Two:** In the Night  
 **Author:** [](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/profile)[**vegawriters**](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** NCIS  
 **Timeframe:** End of season three, before _Shalom_. References to _Under Covers._  
 **Rating:** Mature  
 **Pairing:** Tony/Ziva; mention of Ziva/Sarah (OFC).  
 **A/N:** The Americanization of Ziva David. This chapter is for [](http://kittyknighton.livejournal.com/profile)[**kittyknighton**](http://kittyknighton.livejournal.com/).  
 **Disclaimer:** I keep falling in love with beautiful characters already written by other people. If CBS is looking for a young, up and coming writer who will devote herself wholeheartedly to the process, I’m the right girl. Otherwise, I make no money from this. NCIS, Ziva, and the team belong to other people. I’m just walking with them for a while.

 **Summary:** _His appearance at her apartment proved to her that he is nervous about more than tomorrow. They have been undercover as lovers before. But this time it feels different. Last time, they let themselves get caught in the moment. They had so little time to prepare or dwell on the ramifications of the line they were destined to cross._

 _In Southern Mexico  
You forget just why you came  
You run to Northern California  
But, you forget to change your name  
But, when I get to New York City  
It won’t matter none of this will change  
Ten thousand miles and running  
All these songs will remain the same  
Head PE ~ The Other Side_

***

 _“America? You’re taking a job in America without talking to me about it first?”_

 _“Since when do we talk about our careers, Sarah? You have your life and I have mine and I need to take this job.”_

The pounding of her feet against the pavement matched the pounding of her heart in her chest. Her hair was heavy in the humidity and despite being tied up in a tight braid, it bounced uncomfortably against her shoulders. The weight of the water in the air made it harder to breathe; she missed the beaches of Tel Aviv and even in the cooler night air, she missed the dryness of Israel and the way the setting sun changed the world.

Ziva had always roamed the nights, her body trained to sleep only when she needed it most. Worried that spending her days investigating rather than hunting she would grow soft, she had taken to pacing, wandering the streets, learning her new home. Every neighborhood had its secrets.

In the early morning hours she gave in to her memories of Ari and Tali. When they were little, she and Ari would sneak from their bedrooms and explore the streets of the city. As children, they did not know their security came from who their father was and not the luck that God gave to children. Hand in hand, they would race down back alleys, gathering friends as they went. Sneaking into clubs, knocking over market stands, racing down the beach barefoot as the water lapped at their feet, they did not understand the greater political ramifications around them. They were children, dreaming of lives as astronauts and princesses. Ziva always wanted to be an astronaut. To her young eyes, the hotels along the sands were tall enough to touch the stars and she wanted to stand on the roofs and reach her hands into the universe.

But then Ari went to school and Ziva learned the hard way that the security offered her did not extend to her friends. The look on her father’s face after the bombing that killed Omar was always on constant replay in her mind, that brief second where he looked pleased as he surveyed the damage even while she was screaming for her friend and wondering why he did not answer. Her father knelt before her, his strong hands on her little shoulders, telling her that if she wanted, she could help to end the violence between their people.

What violence? She had shouted. She and Omar were friends! There was no violence between them! They celebrated and played together.

Innocence lost at twelve while rubble smoldered around her. Omar’s mother shouted curses at them while Ziva shielded Tali from the smoke and flames. Her father stared through her, into what she now knew was the future. Her mother had bundled her away from his influence, but she had never been able to shake the image of Omar’s mangled body and when her time to serve came up, she requested intelligence and the direct route into Mossad.

There are nights, when she is at her most contemplative, when she wonders if Eli did not also engineer Tali’s death. Ziva had told Tony that Tali had compassion. Maybe that had been her weakness. She was not cold enough for whatever her father had planned. Ziva had looked into men’s eyes as life left them, had waited until the moment of death and unloaded yet another spray of bullets into the corpses, seeking revenge still for Omar. And Tali. Now Ari. Not that she would ever admit it except to herself and the stars.

Approaching the front steps of her apartment, Ziva slowed her pace. Sitting outside, leaning back against the concrete, breaking some kind of rule about loitering, was her partner – now her boss. It is not the first time she had seen him lingering near her home since his promotion and Gibbs’ retirement, but it was the first time he blatantly violated her privacy.

“What do you want?” Her voice startled Tony from whatever reverie he was lost in. “It is near two in the morning. Why are you not with one of your women?” She took position on the step below him, reaching for the band in her hair to pull it free. Even without the binding, it stayed plaited. “If you do not come inside, someone will think you are stalking me.”

“Why aren’t you in bed, tucked in and sleeping to get ready for tomorrow?”

“Why aren’t you?” Stepping past him, she moved up the stairs, knowing he would follow. His appearance at her apartment proved to her that he is nervous about more than tomorrow. They have been undercover as lovers before. But this time it feels different. Last time, they let themselves get caught in the moment. They had so little time to prepare or dwell on the ramifications of the line they were destined to cross. She would be lying if she were to tell people she did not miss his lips on hers or the way he moved inside her body, but it had merely been an operation, something agents of all agencies must do from time to time. How many lovers had she passed in the night, connected to only because she was ordered to give of her body to an interrogation or an operation? So what if it ran the risk of eating at her soul?

She and Tony were not the first; she has seen the looks that pass between Jenny and Gibbs. She knows they worked together in Paris and suspects they did more than get to know each other as partners. Jenny never divulged details, but her face spoke volumes when they talked into the night over tea while trying to decipher intelligence cables.

Would she and Tony end up like that? Lost to forgotten chances? Staring at each other across rooms while they pretended to go their separate ways?

The inner voice that sounded so much like her father chastised her for giving way to romantic dreaming.

Tony followed her into her apartment and for a moment, Ziva paused at the window, wondering if she imagined the shadows in the car parked across the street. She would not put it past her father to monitor her actions and if he thought she was sleeping with Tony, he will believe she has truly won their trust.

She shouldn’t have to win trust. She should be trusted. But she knows part of her job is to send intelligence back to Mossad and NCIS is no doubt aware of her extra assignment. Jenny is not stupid and it is not the first time she has been sent this situation, so why is it this time that it feels dirty?

“What’s a girl like you doing roaming DC at night?”

Ziva chuckled and closed the curtains, blocking out the shadowy sedan. Dim light from the lamp by the couch cast shadows across hardwood floors. “Can I make you some tea, Tony?”

“Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter while she slowly unraveled her hair from its braid. He was twitchy and trying to hide it. “You never answered my question, Ziva.”

“Why are you worried, Tony?”

“Because the last time we went undercover like this…”

Ahhh. Truth in the moment. “I did not get pregnant, Tony.” Ziva smirked before focusing her attention to measuring tea leaves into the decanter and putting the water on to boil. She hated American tea. Tea bags held the cast-off, the worst parts of the leaf. Stewing the tea only makes it dark and bitter. No wonder America was in such a state of shambles – they could not even be bothered to make tea the right way. The importance of tea is something the English understood. Thinking of it, she wondered if America was not doomed from the start. Who threw tea into a harbor?

Sarah had always liked tea.

A shift in the energy in the kitchen made her catch her breath. Tony’s hand was on her back, sliding up, under her shirt, tracing the edge of her pants against her hips. The intimacy was nothing new, but the boldness is. They had been drifting since Gibbs retired, since the bombing that the Navy covered up better than Mossad did its own operations.

The shriek from the kettle startled them and she pulled away, taking a pot holder to the hot handle of the small cast iron kettle. She sets the kettle and the tea cups down on the table, keeping her eyes averted from Tony’s. It is not that she does not want him, but that she has begun to care. This is not some moment they can walk away from. She will have to see him in the morning, go undercover with him, trust him, and then accept that they are not bound to each other because they slept together.

His hand is on her waist again and he is close, so close, to her. “Tony …” She spun and pushed him away slightly but his hand caught hers and she found herself pressed flush against his chest. Had they arrived then at the place where only sex would console them? He stroked her face and she gave in to the look in his eyes. They go undercover in the morning. Having this connection between them will make the chemistry even more believable. Right?

Tea forgotten, he walked her back to her bedroom, undressing her as they went. Collapsing together onto the bed, they became a tangle of arms and legs and sheets; drowning themselves in each other.

***

Sun touched the horizon and peeked through the cracks in Ziva’s blackout curtains, highlighting the shadows that still moved on her bed. Before she came to the states, the loss of a leader would have been chalked up to the process of elimination. But Gibbs was not just a leader and even in her year with NCIS she learned just how much he loved the people in his life and how quickly she would risk her own life for his safety. Not just Gibbs, but McGee, Abby, and Tony. God, Tony.

Back at Mossad, she slept with partners, woke, worked with them, and did not care if the next day they chose to share a bed with someone else. Why was it so different here? Had she already started to change her mentality about sex, sex in the work place, sex between friends? What was next? No longer tempting beautiful women to her bed? Had she already adapted American prudishness into her sense of self?

No. If she had, she would not be gasping and tightening her hands in the sheets as Tony worked between her legs. She knew that when they return to the office, this moment would be left behind, a dream, a secret they can carry. She will be able to carry on. Will he?

Any last logical thought exploded through the top of her head as orgasm gripped her. She trembled, her toes curling, her thighs tightening, her back arcing, her fingers tensing, her head shaking back and forth as she gasped out Tony’s name.

She reached for him, feeling the light sheen of sweat drying on her arms. He collapsed on top of her, half hard, nuzzling at her neck as he wrapped her tightly in his arms.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

There was a soft desperation in his voice that worried her. Gently, Ziva pulled back and ran her fingers through his sweaty hair. “What is wrong, Tony?”

“Nothing.” He kissed her softly. “I just … this was coming, wasn’t it?”

Knowing he is hiding something from her but not daring to push, she stroked her fingers down his back. “It has happened before. Between us.”

“We were undercover. Caught up in a moment. That was different.”

“Was it?” Ziva rolled them so she straddled him. He had more hair on his body than she preferred on her lovers, but she liked running her fingers through it. “It is still sex, Tony.”

“It’s more than that with you, Ziva.”

The tone of his voice worried her. “What is wrong?” She asked again.

“Nothing.” He shook his head and looked away and she knew he was lying and it did not take much for her mind to piece it all together. His own undercover operation then, something beyond what they were about to do, going into a club as young lovers, infiltrating a secret society, looking for a serial killer that was tracking down female naval officers.

“It is something, Tony.”

“Not that I can talk about.” He shrugged and Ziva nodded. She had to respect that there were things he would not be able to divulge. After all, he could not know of her own secrets, her own missions assigned by Mossad. Leaning down, letting her breasts brush the hair on his chest, she kissed him tenderly. “We should get ready for work,” he said as they pulled apart, his voice full of regret. “I need to go home and change.”

“All right.”

She rolled off of him and walked to where she hung her robe on the hook by the closet. His eyes were on her and she let him look for a lingering moment before covering up and turning back to him. In that moment they were again friends and partners and this diversion was something to file away and remember later. “I will see you at the office.”

“I’ll bring coffee.” He smiled and sat up and Ziva gave him the privacy to dress.

In the kitchen, the tea was now cold and stewed to chunky. She threw the leaves in the sink and poured herself a glass of water, waiting until she heard the front door close behind Tony to get moving again. Precise, tense movements got her through cleaning her kitchen and stepping into the shower before she sank tiredly against the cool tiles, hot water sluicing over her like there was enough for everyone in the world.

She had slept with friends and partners before. What made this so different? She missed Sarah. She missed the pretense of a normal life. Maybe this was her pretense of a normal life.

 _“America? You’re taking a job in America without talking to me about it first?”_

 _“Since when do we talk about our careers, Sarah? You have your life and I have mine and I need to take this job.”_

The water hid the tears that slid down her cheeks.

 _TBC …_


End file.
